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Sperm are floating around in the vicinity of eggs before fertilization. If left undisturbed, fertilization will occur. Many methods of birth control disrupt tha

Sperm are floating around in the vicinity of eggs before fertilization. If left undisturbed, fertilization will occur. Many methods of birth control disrupt that sperm/egg interaction. It's not all that dissimilar from disrupting some intracellular interaction, or some other intercellular interaction, to prevent a fertilized embryo from replicating or implanting. Sperm+unfertilized egg mixtures in a uterus are on the path to life. For that matter, mixtures of uneducated teenagers will, if undisturbed, make a whole bunch of babies.

anon291 4y ago
Sperm and eggs cannot grow or divide further, which is a fundamental requirement to being alive (the ability to grow). They can only do so on the context of fusing together at which point a diploid organism is created, which seems to be a requirement for human individuals. If you know of a case of a conscious haploid human being please inform us now
- tomrod 4y ago
  Parthenogenesis is uncommon but not impossible in eggs. We might have record of it happening once for humans in some holy writ, though the baby was considered male, which if genetically male would be impossible for parthenogenesis but not necessarily if the case were simply phenotypically male (like a female hyena). Certainly that story is more common in the US than other similarly derived folklore and myths, like Athena (female, so parthenogenesis is a potential).
  - anon291 4y ago
    Are you claiming a historical Athena? Please provide evidence.
    - tomrod 4y ago
      This is not really connected to the point made. She is in the Greek mythos and was worshipped by many. Historical enough for divinity claims, should I be interested in her patronage as a mortal. We can probably find a suitable historical figure to attach that divinity to. Maybe Mary Magdalene from the New Testament, she is already considered somewhat divine in the apocrypha (Christian holy writ arbitrarily not included in the Bible of mostly similar concurrency). Maybe even tie Canaanite and Greek pantheons back together through Asherah.
      - anon291 4y ago
        You're going way off topic. You asked why sperm and eggs are not living, but a diploid fertilized egg would be considered an individual human. I provided an answer (sperm and eggs lack a fundamental qualification to being human -- having a diploid set of chromosomes). Unless you can provide evidence of a human being with a haploid set of chromosomes (23 or less), my point still stands. Greek, Christian, or whatever mythology doesn't matter.
        tomrod 4y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis > Parthenogenesis occurs naturally in some plants, some invertebrate animal species (including nematodes, some tardigrades, water fleas, some scorpions, aphids, some mites, some bees, some Phasmatodea and parasitic wasps) and a few vertebrates (such as some fish, amphibians, reptiles and very rarely birds). This type of reproduction has been induced artificially in a few species including fish, amphibians, and mice. Happens in vertebrates. Hasn't been observed among primates quite yet, but give it time and proper data capture. Thus why mythology (oral embedding of odd events preserved by religious contexts) could provide a single meta-observation in the stories of virgins giving birth. You then asked for a historical Athena -- not sure why you wanted to go that direction but guessed you wanted to go off topic -- so I went with it. You're trying to make the point of "can't happen" that eggs self-fertilize. We know they do, though, among vertabrates. That we haven't observed it in humans means one of three hypotheses: (1) it is impossible, (2) it is rare, (3) we don't capture the observation (perhaps the fetuses all miscarry, thus requiring abortion as a medical procedure).
- rcoveson 4y ago
  I'm not talking about sperm and eggs dividing independently, I'm talking about a mixture of sperm and eggs in a uterus. That mixture is on its path to life, and it looks every bit as lifelike to the naked eye and (largely by extention) the moral instinct as a fertilized embryo does.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - gruez 4y ago
    Without getting too philosophical, I think most people would agree that a mixture of sperm and eggs isn't a singular entity, whereas a fertilized egg/zygote/clump of cells is.
    - rcoveson 4y ago
      The problem is we've already gotten too philosophical. Nobody has any prepubescent moral instincts about fertilized human eggs. Nobody has any empathy for fertilized human eggs. Deciding that an ethically-burdensome life begins at egg fertilization is ridiculously modern, arbitrary, and, to use your phrase, "too philosophical". It isn't a threshold born of compassion, like mid-term or late-term abortion laws are in some people's minds. It's a threshold decided on by dispassionate intellectuals because it seemed kind of parsimonious if you squinted at it just right, and then adopted by politicians and partisans because it seemed like the best they were going to get on the road to their real goal, which is criminalizing birth control. Is there somebody out there I could read who argues that the ethical responsibility to carry a pregnancy to term begins at the moment of egg fertilization, who doesn't also personally believe that extramarital sex and/or birth control are sinful? I am genuinely interested in being proven wrong about my characterization of people who argue for fertilized-egg-morality. I have questions for them, like "how far into the egg must the sperm penetrate before it becomes an ethically significant entity?" and "do documented cases of parthenogenesis in humans indicate that all eggs are ethically significant entities as well?"
      - anon291 4y ago
- Buttons840 4y ago
  An human egg can only grow if it somehow combines with a sperm, a human child can only grow if it somehow combines with food. The fact is life and death surround us. A single bacteria is roughly as amazing as all the rest of the cosmos combined (as far as we've seen). Each human egg and sperm contain great potential, if only the conditions are right, if only they combine with their environment in the right way. Yet death is everywhere. The miracle of life is destroyed so elsewhere it can thrive. I'm not convinced losing a single human egg, fertilized though it may be, is especially tragic. At some point it is worth protecting with force and violence (because that's what we're debating in this thread), but not when it's only a few cells.
  - anon291 4y ago
    > a human child can only grow if it somehow combines with food. Indeed, and in the United States, it is a crime for a mother or father (or even most random adults) to neglect a child. The kidney argument is often used to make the case that a woman should not have to carry a child. However, this argument falls flat. If you find an abandoned child, you actually... have to take care of it. If you don't, you can be imprisoned. If you're the parent, you'll be imprisoned for even longer. You have a basic duty to care for children, even if not a parent. > I'm not convinced losing a single human egg, fertilized though it may be, is especially tragic. I can find a lot of people whose death I would not find particularly tragic. The law -- thank goodness -- doesn't follow the whims of anon291.
fundad 4y ago
Now you're getting it! They will ban contraception too. Let's attack this project on the desired outcome which is changing culture.

anon291 4y ago

Sperm and eggs cannot grow or divide further, which is a fundamental requirement to being alive (the ability to grow). They can only do so on the context of fusing together at which point a diploid organism is created, which seems to be a requirement for human individuals. If you know of a case of a conscious haploid human being please inform us now

tomrod 4y ago
Parthenogenesis is uncommon but not impossible in eggs. We might have record of it happening once for humans in some holy writ, though the baby was considered male, which if genetically male would be impossible for parthenogenesis but not necessarily if the case were simply phenotypically male (like a female hyena). Certainly that story is more common in the US than other similarly derived folklore and myths, like Athena (female, so parthenogenesis is a potential).
- anon291 4y ago
  Are you claiming a historical Athena? Please provide evidence.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    This is not really connected to the point made. She is in the Greek mythos and was worshipped by many. Historical enough for divinity claims, should I be interested in her patronage as a mortal. We can probably find a suitable historical figure to attach that divinity to. Maybe Mary Magdalene from the New Testament, she is already considered somewhat divine in the apocrypha (Christian holy writ arbitrarily not included in the Bible of mostly similar concurrency). Maybe even tie Canaanite and Greek pantheons back together through Asherah.
    - anon291 4y ago
      You're going way off topic. You asked why sperm and eggs are not living, but a diploid fertilized egg would be considered an individual human. I provided an answer (sperm and eggs lack a fundamental qualification to being human -- having a diploid set of chromosomes). Unless you can provide evidence of a human being with a haploid set of chromosomes (23 or less), my point still stands. Greek, Christian, or whatever mythology doesn't matter.
      - tomrod 4y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis > Parthenogenesis occurs naturally in some plants, some invertebrate animal species (including nematodes, some tardigrades, water fleas, some scorpions, aphids, some mites, some bees, some Phasmatodea and parasitic wasps) and a few vertebrates (such as some fish, amphibians, reptiles and very rarely birds). This type of reproduction has been induced artificially in a few species including fish, amphibians, and mice. Happens in vertebrates. Hasn't been observed among primates quite yet, but give it time and proper data capture. Thus why mythology (oral embedding of odd events preserved by religious contexts) could provide a single meta-observation in the stories of virgins giving birth. You then asked for a historical Athena -- not sure why you wanted to go that direction but guessed you wanted to go off topic -- so I went with it. You're trying to make the point of "can't happen" that eggs self-fertilize. We know they do, though, among vertabrates. That we haven't observed it in humans means one of three hypotheses: (1) it is impossible, (2) it is rare, (3) we don't capture the observation (perhaps the fetuses all miscarry, thus requiring abortion as a medical procedure).
rcoveson 4y ago
I'm not talking about sperm and eggs dividing independently, I'm talking about a mixture of sperm and eggs in a uterus. That mixture is on its path to life, and it looks every bit as lifelike to the naked eye and (largely by extention) the moral instinct as a fertilized embryo does.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gruez 4y ago
  Without getting too philosophical, I think most people would agree that a mixture of sperm and eggs isn't a singular entity, whereas a fertilized egg/zygote/clump of cells is.
  - rcoveson 4y ago
    The problem is we've already gotten too philosophical. Nobody has any prepubescent moral instincts about fertilized human eggs. Nobody has any empathy for fertilized human eggs. Deciding that an ethically-burdensome life begins at egg fertilization is ridiculously modern, arbitrary, and, to use your phrase, "too philosophical". It isn't a threshold born of compassion, like mid-term or late-term abortion laws are in some people's minds. It's a threshold decided on by dispassionate intellectuals because it seemed kind of parsimonious if you squinted at it just right, and then adopted by politicians and partisans because it seemed like the best they were going to get on the road to their real goal, which is criminalizing birth control. Is there somebody out there I could read who argues that the ethical responsibility to carry a pregnancy to term begins at the moment of egg fertilization, who doesn't also personally believe that extramarital sex and/or birth control are sinful? I am genuinely interested in being proven wrong about my characterization of people who argue for fertilized-egg-morality. I have questions for them, like "how far into the egg must the sperm penetrate before it becomes an ethically significant entity?" and "do documented cases of parthenogenesis in humans indicate that all eggs are ethically significant entities as well?"
    - anon291 4y ago
Buttons840 4y ago
An human egg can only grow if it somehow combines with a sperm, a human child can only grow if it somehow combines with food. The fact is life and death surround us. A single bacteria is roughly as amazing as all the rest of the cosmos combined (as far as we've seen). Each human egg and sperm contain great potential, if only the conditions are right, if only they combine with their environment in the right way. Yet death is everywhere. The miracle of life is destroyed so elsewhere it can thrive. I'm not convinced losing a single human egg, fertilized though it may be, is especially tragic. At some point it is worth protecting with force and violence (because that's what we're debating in this thread), but not when it's only a few cells.
- anon291 4y ago
  > a human child can only grow if it somehow combines with food. Indeed, and in the United States, it is a crime for a mother or father (or even most random adults) to neglect a child. The kidney argument is often used to make the case that a woman should not have to carry a child. However, this argument falls flat. If you find an abandoned child, you actually... have to take care of it. If you don't, you can be imprisoned. If you're the parent, you'll be imprisoned for even longer. You have a basic duty to care for children, even if not a parent. > I'm not convinced losing a single human egg, fertilized though it may be, is especially tragic. I can find a lot of people whose death I would not find particularly tragic. The law -- thank goodness -- doesn't follow the whims of anon291.

fundad 4y ago

Now you're getting it! They will ban contraception too. Let's attack this project on the desired outcome which is changing culture.